Slobodan Milosevic's death in custody at the UN's war crimes tribunal in The Hague last month marked an abrupt end to hopes for justice for the thousands of victims of the Balkan conflicts that the former Yugoslav leader unleashed. That was a grave blow to the evolution of international humanitarian law under which former heads of state who perpetrate atrocities can no longer shelter behind the outdated doctrine of "sovereign immunity". But now another Dutch prison cell is being prepared for Charles Taylor, the ex-president of Liberia, held responsible for some of Africa's most savage bloodletting of recent years.

Taylor is facing justice only because Nigeria, under diplomatic pressure, reluctantly allowed his delivery to the Special Court in Sierra Leone, where the flamboyant warlord wreaked bloody havoc during the 11-year diamond-fuelled civil war by supporting and arming the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group notorious for hacking off the limbs, lips and ears of civilians, including children. Charges include crimes against humanity, sexual violence and the conscription of child soldiers who were kidnapped, drugged and turned into sadistic killers. Nigeria allowed Taylor a comfortable exile in return for stepping down as president; that helped bring peace to Liberia after 14 years of war and 250,000 dead, but the new government of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf rightly insisted he be surrendered. Still, the difficulties of avoiding impunity have been underlined by the request that the trial be held in The Hague, home to the fledgling International Criminal Court, since proceedings against him in Monrovia or Freetown could undermine the region's tenuous peace and stability. That is unfortunate because there are strong political and practical arguments for trying the perpetrators of atrocities close to where they were committed, not in some distant foreign capital.

Still it is good for Africa that justice has not lost out in a false argument between justice and stability. Both matter. The Sierra Leone tribunal, unlike the UN tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, uses a mixture of domestic and international law. It has indicted only a dozen people but has yet to convict any of them. The Rwanda tribunal has completed just 26 cases in 10 years. Taylor will now join the ranks of Milosevic and Saddam Hussein - a lesson that should make other African despots think twice before unleashing mass murder and systematic mutilation. But his trial needs to be efficient as well as fair. Asylum and amnesty cannot be the right end to such terrible stories.